part two

In many regards, I intensely dislike change. What works, works, and there's no need fiddling with it. I would never replace gadgets because they've become superseded technically. The PowerBook I write this post on hails from early 2003. Obsolete is too harsh a word. If clothes have done their job ten years ago, there's no reason they shouldn't do so today, provided they're not ripped to shreds. My sweater of highest confirmed age is one my dad gave me for Christmas of 1990. Its age shows; it's certainly not something I'd wear every day, but to me it exudes the dignity of a revered elder, and I take it for a stroll from time to time.

In other regards, I can't do without change. I hate it when continuity slides off into boredom, and I'm usually gone before that happens. Frequent relocations are one consequence of this. Getting explosively enthusiastic about something and then dropping it a little while later (Arabic, anyone?) are another. This need for change and diversity is also reflected in the topics of this blog. Most of the time, there is not even the most tenuous connection between subsequent posts.

Today, things are different. This post seamlessly continues the previous one. My home phone is still broken. I wasted two mornings waiting for an engineer to show at my flat when I could have been working, advancing my career or, at the very least, playing football, which I missed on Monday because I didn't make it to College on time.

On Monday I waited until noon, one hour before the latest possible arrival time of the engineer, before I called Orange. I couldn't take it any longer. I should have called earlier. The call-center wallah told me the engineer hadn't been able to contact me – despite my cell phone's being on and with me all morning. Before I could schedule yet another appointment, the connection went, an annoyingly frequent occurrence in these ill-fated service calls.

I called back, going through a routine that has become painfully familiar: "Welcome to Orange! Please listen carefully as our options have changed." I listen carefully, and they're still the same as a few minutes earlier. I punch two and then two again and am on hold. Thankfully, the loop of an inebriated village pub choir belting The twelve days of Christmas has now been replaced with assorted pop music samples. Then the soft voice of an Irishman's "Hello, how can I help you" (without a question mark), followed by the confirmation of my home phone number, full name, first line of address, postcode, and, if extra diligence is taken, the first and fourth characters of my online password. By now I've paid a pound for the call and have received nothing in return.

But another appointment is quickly scheduled. "How about tomorrow morning, 8 to 1?" — "Yes", I say, and have the wallah read my cell phone number back to me so there's no chance of another miss. I have at least one more day of the pleasure of getting my landline calls forwarded to my cell phone.

What I've found out so far is that telemarketers don't exist anymore. These days, machines do the job, not just the dialing but the actual calling as well. Tapes (what a quaint notion, I realize) start playing in my ears, yabbering about purchasing insurance and obscure banks dealings. What's the hope here on the caller's side? Who is so emotionally deprived to converse with a recording and subsequently engage in a commercial transaction with it? I guess the cost of this kind of business is marginal; any turnover will be profit. But how can the success rate for the caller be any higher than zero?

This conundrum unresolved, I sat on my dining-room table by eight o'clock this morning, my cell phone (profile: outdoors) at arm's length, waiting for the engineer. After a hearty breakfast and some reading, the clock struck eleven and there had been no progress. Afraid to be stood up again, I called Orange – same options, same security questions – and was reassured by Paul that the appointment had been scheduled and that the engineer would come by.

I was not reassured. I asked Paul, and then asked again, to call BT Connect and confirm that the appointment was still on, that it hadn't been lost in a busy morning like the previous day's. "No worries", I was told after suffering through another two minutes of assorted pop samples, "the engineer is on his way. He will be at your flat before 1pm." He never arrived.

At this point, the question of whether Orange or BT Connect is more painfully incompetent could be debated with passion. Orange has friendly automata as call center staff, good for a conversation but not exactly helpful. And it can't fix a telephone line it provides and (at least indirectly) charges for even after three weeks. BT Connect has engineers that don't call when they're supposed to and do when they're not. Sounds like a tie, but I don't care. I have now given up on my landline. I don't need it anyway. It was never worth the trouble. The few people that call me there will get an email with my second line's number. It won't make a difference to them. And with my internet service, nothing will change either. That's a good thing.